remembers the invention of the wheel

The Forgotten Graves of Lanark County

Almonte Gazette 1884—read the Almonte Gazette hereMr. Benard Malloy, of Grattan, informed the editor of the Eganville Enterprise that a few days ago, while prospecting for mineral specimens near Lake Clear he came across a grave, and the head of it stood a large beech tree, with a name carved in the tree.Being written in French he could not make it out– but the date, 1840 was still legible. Malloy opened the grave and found the coffin to be in as good as the shape as the day it was put in under the clay. It was made of cedar slabs wooden pins and inside the content was nothing but bones.

Inside St. James Cemetery in Carleton Place there is a grave on the side of the hill just after the entrance and “a little down the ways” as they say. No one knows who is buried there and the grave is unmarked. The caretaker says someone is definitely buried there but there are no records and no headstone.

Although caretakers maintain the modern cemeteries of today, this was once not the case. Many cemetery plots were not marked or the original wooden markers decayed and rotted away. Over time, even the cemetery itself may have become “lost.”

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About lindaseccaspina

Linda Knight Seccaspina was born in Cowansville, Quebec about the same time as the wheel was invented and the first time she realized she could tell a tale was when she got caught passing her smutty stories around in Grade 7 at CHS by Mrs. Blinn.
When Derek "Wheels" Wheeler from Degrassi Jr. High died in 2010, Linda wrote her own obituary. Some people said she should think about a career in writing obituaries.
Before she laid her fingers to a keyboard, Linda owned the eclectic store Flash Cadilac and Savannah Devilles in Ottawa from 1976-1996. After writing for years about things that she cared about or pissed her off she finally found her calling. Is it sex drugs and rock n' roll you might ask? No, it is history. Seeing that her very first boyfriend in Grade 5 (who she won a Twist contest with in the 60s) is the head of the Brome Misissiquoi Historical Society and also specializes in local history back in Quebec, she finds that quite funny.
She writes every single day and is also a columnist for Hometown News and Screamin's Mamas. She is a volunteer for the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum, an admin for the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page, and a local guest speaker.
She has been now labelled an historian by the locals which in her mind is wrong. You see she will never be like the iconic local Lanark County historian Howard Morton Brown, nor like famed local writer Mary Cook. She proudly calls herself The National Enquirer Historical writer of Lanark County, and that she can live with.
Linda has been called the most stubborn woman in Lanark County, and has requested her ashes to be distributed in any Casino parking lot as close to any Wheel of Fortune machine as you can get. But since she wrote her obituary, most people assume she's already dead.
Linda has published six books, "Menopausal Woman From the Corn," "Cowansville High Misremembered," "Naked Yoga, Twinkies and Celebrities," "Cancer Calls Collect," "The Tilted Kilt-Vintage Whispers of Carleton Place," and "Flashbacks of Little Miss Flash Cadilac." All are available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Linda's books are for sale on Amazon or at Wisteria · 62 Bridge Street · Carleton Place, Ottawa, Canada, and at the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum · 267 Edmund Street · Carleton Place, Ottawa, Canada--Appleton Museum-Mississippi Textile Mill and Mill Street Books and Heritage House Museum and The Artists Loft in Smith Falls.